Georgia O’Keeffe. Evening Star No.III, 1917. Watercolor on paper mounted on board. 8 7/8 x 11 7/8″ (22.7 x 30.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Straus Fund, 1958. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Georgia O’Keeffe is best known for her paintings – those iconic and lyrical large-scale works depicting lush flowers and animal skulls against a desert landscape. However, in the years before she began painting, O’Keeffe explored her motifs on paper using charcoal, watercolor, pastel and graphite. Georgia O’Keeffe: To See Takes Time, opening April 9 at the Museum of Modern Art, explores this lesser-known side of O’Keeffe’s oeuvre with 120 works, along with some of the paintings the resulted from her studies on paper.